how can a transfer from a checking account to a mortgage account be included in an expense report?

Mollie20

Hi, the transfer from a checking account to a loan is an expense (payment). How is the transfer set up such the loan is picked up in an expense report?

jacobs

@Mollie20  In strict accounting terms, the loan payment is a cash flow transfer (decreasing an asset, your checking account, and decreasing a liability, your loan), and is not an expense. But from a personal finance standpoint, a loan payment feels like an expense, and you logically want to be able to see it in a report.

To do this, make sure you create your expense report with Create Transaction Report or Create Summary Report on the Reports menu. (Do not use the old Category Summary report.) The trick is that when you go to Customize, you should select just your banking accounts, but not the loan account, on the Accounts tab; then go to the Advanced tab and select "Include only transfers with accounts outside of report". This will show your transfers at the bottom of the report. Or in the Advanced Tab, you can switch Organization to Cash Flow, and you'll see the transfer amount included in your Inflow (income) and Outflow (expense) subtotals. 

jacobs

@Mollie20  In strict accounting terms, the loan payment is a cash flow transfer (decreasing an asset, your checking account, and decreasing a liability, your loan), and is not an expense. But from a personal finance standpoint, a loan payment feels like an expense, and you logically want to be able to see it in a report.

To do this, make sure you create your expense report with Create Transaction Report or Create Summary Report on the Reports menu. (Do not use the old Category Summary report.) The trick is that when you go to Customize, you should select just your banking accounts, but not the loan account, on the Accounts tab; then go to the Advanced tab and select "Include only transfers with accounts outside of report". This will show your transfers at the bottom of the report. Or in the Advanced Tab, you can switch Organization to Cash Flow, and you'll see the transfer amount included in your Inflow (income) and Outflow (expense) subtotals. 

Mollie20

@jacobs
Thanks for the quick feedback. Made the changes you suggested and the mortgage payment showed up in the outflows. I must have been using the old category summary report and I did have the mortgage account selected.
Oddly, although the mortgage transfer correctly shows up, a few random account transfers to pay a credit card shows up as an inflow. Any thougths?

jacobs

@Mollie20  If you want to eliminate those transactions from your report, in the Customize screen of your report, you can click on the Accounts tab to select (or deselect) which accounts are included in your report.

From the perspective of your credit card account, payments are an inflow. From the perspective of your checking account, payments are an outflow. So it depends what you include in a report's setup as to what's an inflow or outflow.